A man convicted of murdering a 15-year-old girl in a San Francisco park nearly 50 years ago has been sentenced to life in prison, the District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.
Mark Personette, 81, was convicted in 2025 of first-degree murder in the killing of Marissa Harvey, who was found strangled to death in Sutro Heights Park in 1978.
“After almost 50 years, Mr. Personette is finally being held accountable for his heinous crimes against Marissa and will spend the rest of his life in prison,” said District Attorney Brooke Jenkins in a statement. “While nothing can bring Marissa back to her family, today’s sentence hopefully leaves her family with a sense that justice was done for all that they have endured.”
According to testimony and evidence presented at trial, Harvey was in San Francisco visiting her sister in March 1978 when she went to Golden Gate Park one day to ride a horse. She never returned to her sister’s house.
The following day, surfers discovered her body in Sutro Heights Park. Investigators found a bloody leaf and her earring at the scene. Her autopsy showed death by ligature strangulation, as well as injuries consistent with a violent attack and sexual assault, according to prosecutors.
The case went unsolved. With the advent of DNA technology in the early 2000s, investigators found a male DNA profile on Harvey’s sweater, jeans, and a piece of dried chewing gum stuck to her back.
Through investigative genetic genealogy, Personette was identified in 2021 as a potential suspect.
The FBI surveilled Personette near his home in Denver, Colorado, collecting trash that he was seen throwing out in a Walmart parking lot located 15 miles from his house. The trash only contained personal hygiene items.
Investigators matched Personette’s DNA from the trash to the profile obtained from Harvey’s sweater, jeans and the piece of dried gum.
A search warrant of his house showed that Personette had been separating his personal hygiene items from his other trash. Investigators also found 1970s maps of San Francisco and California license plates with a 1979 registration sticker, although he denied that he had been in San Francisco, according to evidence from trial.
He was arrested on suspicion of Harvey’s murder and booked into San Francisco County Jail in January 2022. A jury convicted him of the murder last year.
A prior victim of Personette also testified that in 1979, he allegedly raped her in a wooded area of New Jersey.
Although he’s been sentenced to life in prison for the killing of Harvey, Personette will be eligible for parole in seven years.
“This sentence reflects the extraordinary cruelty of Mark Personette’s conduct and the harm he caused,” said Assistant District Attorney Heather Trevisan, who prosecuted the case, in a statement. “He will spend the rest of his life facing the consequence of taking hers.”
